5 Movies About The Sanctity of Football To Make Guys Cry

DISCLAIMER: This is not a series dedicated to proving men shouldn't cry, or to suggest ONLY women cry and are therefore inferior. The goal of this series is to dispel the pre-established (yet flawed) notion that being "manly" and being disconnected from your emotions go hand-in-hand. Even the most macho of men enjoy and even shed a tear at films, and the sooner we can admit that the sooner the concept that one sex is better than the other can go away. While the approach to these articles is one of light-hearted comedy, the emotional core is valid. While men might be more hesitant to admit it, movies often times have the potential to make us cry, for example:

" Movies About The Sanctity of Football"

As Thanksgiving draws closer here in the U.S., I realize there's one tradition that has been overlooked by my food-centric approach to holidays. While I prefer either passing out or deciding which Fallout 4 side quest to work on after a huge holiday meal, a large portion of the population enjoys a different seasonal treat: football. Whether it be pickup games with friends or putting your entire existence into the attempt to go pro, football is a sport that a lot of people take super serious. Going to games, watching games, even paying enormous amounts of money to get cable packages just to watch all the games all the time...the pigskin is king in many households. This is why there are so many movies that hold football in such high regards. Sure you have fun football movies, or character study movies that feature football. What I'm focusing on today are the films that put football on a pedestal, shining a spotlight on aspects of what makes it great. Here are five options to stream while you slip in and out of your inevitable turkey-coma:

1. Remember the TitansThe aspect of football that gets put in display in this film is the notion that anyone can play football, but only great people can play great football. Starring Denzel "Chris Pranger would sleep with him" Washington as a football coach brought in to a desegregated (yet still strongly racist) high school. Between the clashing of the black and white players and the clash between the community and Denzel, you'd think he'd play it cool. HE TOTES DOESN'T! He pushes the players physically harder than they've ever been pushed, and forces them to excel academically as well, something that often gets ignored by teachers who want to stack the deck towards that sweet sweet football money.

What makes the film touch guys is the idealistic approach that Denzel holds his players to. The speeches, the way he acts, all come together to make us feel that football is a true metaphor for life. But then life has to get all sucky, and the team captain is paralyzed in a car crash. We learn he lived 10 more years, won a gold medal in the Paralympics, got in ANOTHER car crash and died. Life sucks, let's stick with football.[1]

[1]Editor's Note: It should be noted, here, that this is also the movie that introduced the millennial generation to the glories of Motown.